tttt}^  SItbrarg 

of  tl^t 


THE  UNIVERSITY  MAGAZINE.  137 


They  murmured  to  me  kindly,  gently, — go, 

Go,  go,  and  do,  and  give,  and  love  ! 

A  peaceful  calm  within  my  spirit  passed 

And  filled  my  soul  with  gratitude  and  joy. 

With  these  grand  words  will  I  go  forth, 

And  do,  and  give,  and  love,  as  thou  hast  bid, 

Dear  helper,  friend,  and  College  Mother,  thou  ! 

And  now  the  great  round  moon  arose 

From  out  her  daytime  bed,  and  gleamed,  and  thus 

Night  broke  in  stillness  on  the  College  Hill. 

Hunter  L.  Harris. 


REV.  JOHN  WITHERSPOON,  D.  D.,  LL.D. 


The  author  of  the  following  sketch  was  Hon.  Frederick  Nash,  who 
for  years  held  the  eminent  position  of  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  North  Carolina.  He  was  the  son  of  Governor  Abner  Nash, 
nephew  of  General  Francis  Nash,  who  was  killed  at  Germantown,  in 
1777.  He  was  a  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  from  1844  until  his 
death,  in  1858,  and  from  1852  was  Chief  Justice.  Rev.  Dr.  Wither- 
spoon  was  one  of  the  most  prominent  and  useful  divines  of  our  State, 
and  our  readers  should  be  glad  to  possess  a  memoir  of  him  from  the 
pen  of  one  who  ♦knew  him  well,  and  so  ably  portrays  his  life  and 
character : 

"The  late  Rev.  John  Witherspoon,  D.  D.,  LL.D.,  was  born  near 
Newbern,  in  this  State,  in  the  year  1791.  His  father  was  the  youngest 
son  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Witherspoon,  who  was  for  many  years  the 
President  of  Princeton  College,  in  New  Jersey.  Born  in  Scotland  and 
educated  a  Presbyterian,  he  early  in  life  imbibed  the  spirit  of  freedom, 
and  was  among  the  foremost  to  raise  the  standard  of  resistance  to  the 
tyranny  of  the  government  of  Great  Britain,  and  during  the  whole  of 
the  war  of  the  Revolution  was  an  ardent  and  consistent  patriot.  His 
oldest  son.  Major  John  Witherspoon,  entered  the  army,  and  fell  at  the 
battle  of  Germantown,  by  the  same  ball  that  killed  General  Francis 
Nash,  of  this  State.    David,  the  youngest  son,  and  the  father  of  the 


i,fc5  Ob 


I 

138  THE  UNIVERSITY  MAGAZINE. 


subject  of  this  brief  notice,  removed  to  this  State  after  the  close  of 
the  war,  and  married.  In  the  year  1801  or  1802,  having  lost  his  wife, 
he  removed,  for  the  benefit  of  his  health,  to  Princeton,  and  took  with 
him  his  son  John,  then  of  tender  years.  There  he  died  in  the  suc- 
ceeding year.  By  his  will  he  appointed  Dr.  Samuel  Smith,  his  brother- 
in-law,  and  then  President  of  the  College,  and  Dr.  John  C.  Osborne,  a 
physician,  of  Newbern,  the  guardians  of  his  child.  John  was,  in  time, 
sent  to  an  academy  kept  at  Baskenridge,  in  New  Jersey,  of  which  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Findlay  was  principal,  a  man  justly  celebrated  as  a  teacher 
and  a  divine,  and  here  he  acquired  the  first  rudiments  of  his  academical 
education. 

"  Being  very  young  when  he  lost  his  mother,  and  the  only  surviving 
child  of  a  father  broken  in  health,  he  never  was  subject  in  his  earliest 
days  to  that  restraint  so  necessary  in  forming  the  character  of  the 
future  man.  His  mother's  death  occurred  too  early  in  his  infancy  for 
him  to  have  derived  any  benefit  from  her  judicious  care  and  manage- 
ment. At  the  time,  then,  when  he  was  placed  under  the  care  of  Dr. 
Findlay,  he  was  a  wild  and  reckless  boy,  spurning  at  an  authority  which 
was  new  to  him.  How  long  he  continued  at  the  academy  of  Basken- 
ridge the  writer  does  not  recollect,  but  he  was  taken  from  that  school 
by  Dr.  Smith  and  sent  to  his  other  guardian.  Dr.  Osborne,  who  resigned 
his  charge,  and  John's  maternal  brother  was  appointed  in  his  place.  It 
is  not  a  little  remarkable  that  at  this  time,  when  his  paternal  family 
friends  had,  in  a  measure,  abandoned  him  and  lost  all  hope  of  his  re- 
formation, a  venerable  friend  of  the  family,  the  father  of  Dr.  Findlay, 
refused  to  join  in  the  opinion,  and  remarked  he  had  *  no  doubt  John 
Vv'ould  yet  reform  and  become  a  preacher  of  the  gospel ;  that  there 
never  had  been  a  time  since  the  death  of  John  Knox,  in  which  there 
was  not  a  minister  of  the  gospel  in  a  direct  line  from  him  ' — a  predic- 
tion remarkably  verified  as  to  John  ;  the  Rev.  Dr.  Witherspoon  was  in 
that  Hne,  being  a  direct  descendant  of  John  Knox. 

Upon  John  Witherspoon's  return  to  his  native  place,  he  entered 
the  academy  there,  which  was  under  the  charge  of  Dr.  Irving,  a  man 
of  science  and  full  of  learning,  and  an  excellent  instructor,  who  trusted 
more  to  the  rod  than  to  moral  suasion  ;  of  the  latter  he  knew  little. 
Mr.  Irving  was  a  man  of  unquestioned  genius  ;  and  among  several 
individuals  who  derived  the  rudiments  of  their  education  from  him, 
and  who  in  after-life  rose  to  eminence,  was  the  late  Judge  Gaston. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  MAGAZINE. 


139 


He  afterwards  turned  his  attention  to  the  ministry,  and  was  duly 
admitted  into  orders  in  the  Episcopal  Church  and  installed  as  a  priest 
in  the  church  at  Newbern. 

"  The  subject  of  this  memoir  was,  at  a  subsequent  period,  placed  at 
the  preparatory  school  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina,  then  under 
the  care  of  Rev.  Abner  Clopton.  Here  he  remained  until  he  was  pre- 
pared to  enter  the  University,  which  he  did  in  the  year  1808.  and  where 
he  took  his  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts,  in  the  year  1810.  He  had  for 
his  fellow-student,  among  others,  the  late  James  F.  Taylor.  They 
were,  on  their  Senior  examination,  declared  equal  ;  the  Latin  Saluta- 
tory was  assigned  to  Mr.  Witherspoon,  and  the  Valedictory  to  Mr. 
Taylor,  he  being  the  best  speaker.  After  graduating,  they  both 
entered  the  law  ofifice  of  the  writer,  and  were  duly  admitted  to  the 
bar.  North  Carolina  has  produced  few  men,  if  any,  who  were  superior 
to  Mr.  Taylor  in  the  qualities  of  mind  and  heart — the  former  was 
strong  and  discriminating;  the  latter  warm,  true  and  faithful.  In  pri- 
vate life  he  was  gentle  and  playful  ;  in  public  life  bold  and  very  inde- 
pendent, frank  and  sincere  ;  never  demanding  anything  that  was  not 
justly  his  due,  and  never  permitting  that  to  be  refused  which  was. 
He  soon  placed  himself  in  the  front  rank  of  his  professional  brethren, 
and  while  still  a  young  man  was  chosen  by  the  Legislature  to  fill  the 
high  and  responsible  office  of  Attorney  General  of  the  State.  The 
arduous  duties  were  performed  by  him  with  a  vigor  and  success  that 
entitled  him  to  the  confidence  of  every  class  of  society.  He  was  a 
general  favorite,  and  his  death,  while  still  in  the  prime  of  life,  was 
mourned  as  a  national  loss. 

"  The  subject  of  this  memoir,  at  a  very  early  period  after  obtaining 
his  license,  abandoned  the  profession  of  the  law.  While  on  a  visit  to 
the  North,  he  was,  in  the  providence  of  God,  led  to  hear  a  sermon  from 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Skinner,  a  native  of  this  State,  located  at  that 
time  in  Philadelphia.  From  that  sermon  he  always  dated  his  first 
serious  impression  upon  the  subject  of  religion — an  impression  which, 
though  slight  at  first,  was,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  ripened  into  conviction 
under  the  preaching  of  that  eminent  man  of  God,  Dr.  Robert  Chap- 
man, then  President  of  the  University  of  this  State.  He  was  received 
to  membership  in  the  Presbyterian  church  of  Chapel  Hill,  and  for  the 
first  time  took  his  seat  at  the  communion  table.  From  this  time  he 
felt  himself  called  to  a  higher  and  nobler  walk  in  life,  and  determined 


I40 


THE  UNIVERSITY  MAGAZINE. 


at  once  to  throw  aside  his  law  books,  and  to  devote  himself  to  the  min- 
istry. To  do  this  more  satisfactorily,  he  removed  with  his  family  to 
Elizabethtown  in  New  Jersey,  where  he  went  through  his  course  of 
Theological  studies  under  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  McDowell,  then  pastor 
of  the  Presbyterian  church  at  that  place,  a  man  whose  life  has  been 
devoted  to  his  fellow  men,  and  whose  ministry  has  been  singularly 
blessed  by  the  Great  Head  of  the  Church.  Having  completed  his 
studies,  he  was  regularly  ordained  a  minister  of  the  gospel  by  the 
Presbytery  of  New  Jerse}^,  and  returned  to  his  native  State,  and  lo- 
cated himself  at  Hillsboro.  At  that  time  Hillsboro  was  destitute  of 
the  forms  of  religion  ;  no  house  dedicated  to  the  service  of  Almighty 
God  existed  within  its  precincts  ;  nor  was  there  any  organized  church 
of  any  faith  ;  nor  was  there  any  regular  worship.  Its  Sabbaths  were 
silent  Sabbaths,  undisturbed  by  the  'church-going  bell,'  and  for  many 
a  year  previous  thereto,  a  moral  as  a  religious  darkness  had  spread 
over  the  community.  But  a  great  reformation  had  recently  begun 
under  the  preaching  of  Dr.  Chapman.  In  1816  the  first  Presbyterian 
church  that  ever  had  been  formed  in  Hillsboro,  was  organized  by  Mr. 
Witherspoon,  who  was  ordained  its  pastor  ;  and  there  he  continued  to 
labor  as  such  until  1832,  when  he  removed  to  Camden  in  South  Caro- 
lina upon  a  call  from  the  Presbyterian  church  in  that  place.  He  con- 
tinued to  labor  there  until  he  received  and  accepted  a  call  from  the 
church  in  Columbia,  in  the  same  State.  While  pastor  of  the  church 
in  Hillsboro,  seeing  the  destitution  of  the  place  in  a  literary  point  of 
view,  there  being  no  academy  there,  he  instituted  one,  and  associated 
with  himself  a  gentleman  of  the  name  of  Rogers,  who  was,  as  to  schol- 
arship, thoroughly  qualified  for  the  station.  Under  their  joint  labors 
it  rapidly  rose  into  public  favor.  Many  of  the  young  men  of  our  State, 
now  in  public  life,  received  under  these  gentlemen  the  rudiments  of 
their  education.  Mr.  Witherspoon  possessed  a  high  order  of  talent, 
so  much  so,  that  one  who  knew  him  well,  who  was  then  young,  and 
who  now  occupies  a  high  and  distinguished  place  among  us,  when  he 
heard  that  he  had  abandoned  the  practice  of  the  law,  and  had  turned 
his  attention  to  the  study  of  Divinity,  exclaimed,  '  Is  it  possible  John 
Witherspoon  is  about  to  bury  himself  in  the  pulpit?'  What  nobler 
ground  could  an  intelligent  being  occupy?  What  wider  and  more  ex- 
panded field  for  the  outpourings  of  the  head  and  the  heart?  To  be 
an  instrument  in  the  hand  of  the  living  God,  to  proclaim  to  fallen  men 


THE  UNIVERSITY  MAGAZINE. 


141 


the  precious  promises  of  God, — what  higher  honor  ?  For  the  pulpit 
Mr.  Witherspoon  was  peculiarly  fitted.  With  manners  mild  and 
gentle,  a  voice  sweetly  and  musically  toned,  with  a  sound,  discrimina- 
ting mind,  well  stored  with  learning  imbibed  from  the  source  of  all 
valuable  learning,  and  with  a  heart  overflowing  with  love  to  his  fellow 
men,  he  was  indeed  fully  equipped  for  the  battle.  In  private  life,  he 
was,  especially  among  those  with  whom  he  was  familiar,  extremely 
cheerful  in  his  conversation,  seeking  to  please  as  well  as  to  instruct; 
in  the  pulpit  he  was  ever  solemn,  giving  apparently  his  whole  soul  to 
the  subject  before  him  ;  no  levity  of  conduct  or  of  speech  ever  escaped 
him — he  was  there  solely  to  instruct  and  persuade.  By  many  he  was 
considered  a  fine  pulpit  orator ;  he  was  so,  as  far  as  a  minister  of  the 
gospel  in  the  pulpit  can  be  so,  who  uses  little  or  no  action.  Mr. 
Witherspoon  used  none,  or  very  little.  His  presence  in  the  pulpit 
was  commanding  and  solemn,  his  enunciation  clear,  his  language  chaste 
and  pure,  and  his  sweet  voice  penetrated  to  the  remotest  corner  of  the 
room  in  which  he  preached.  The  leading  feature,  perhaps,  of  his  mind 
was  his  knowledge  of  human  character  ;  it  approached  in  him  nearer 
to  intuition  than  in  any  person  I  ever  saw.  This  power,  or  faculty, 
enabled  him  to  adapt  his  discourses  to  his  audience  in  a  most  effective 
manner.  Especially  was  he  successful  in  addressing  the  young  and 
his  colored  hearers.  His  language  and  his  illustrations  then  were 
suited  to  their  comprehension,  and  with  both  classes  he  was  a  favorite. 
As  to  his  usefulness  as  a  spiritual  instructor  others  can  speak  with 
more  propriety  than  the  writer.  In  an  obituary  notice,  published 
shortly  after  his  death,  and  written  by  one  who  knew  him  well,  and 
loved  him  well,  it  is  said,  'To  his  labors  was  Hillsboro  first  indebted 
for  its  intellectual,  moral,  and  religious  character  ;  through  his  instru- 
mentality schools  were  established,  education  encouraged,  moral  in- 
fluence exerted,  religious  principles,  under  the  influence  of  God's  spirit, 
implanted,  and  men  awakened  to  feel  and  to  act  as  accountable  be- 
ings.' Again  the  same  writer  states  '  As  a  pastor  one  heart  can  bear 
testimony  to  his  faithfulness.  In  sorrow  he  was  ever  a  kind,  affec- 
tionate, sympathizing  friend,  weeping  with  those  that  wept,  and  pour- 
ing the  oil  of  divine  consolation  into  the  broken  and  afflicted  heart. 
To  the  young  he  was  peculiarly  tender  and  affectionate.'  This  is  the 
language  of  personal  friendship,  the  outpourings  of  a  warm  and  gener- 
ous heart,  of  one  first  awakened  to  truth  and  life  under  his  minis- 


142 


THE  UNIVERSITY  MAGAZINE. 


tration.  Not  less  dear  to  his  surviving  friends  is  the  testimony  borne 
to  his  worth  and  usefulness,  in  the  declaration  and  action  of  his  breth- 
ren of  Orange  Presbytery.  On  the  records  of  the  Presbytery,  held  at 
Milton  in  September,  1853,  is  the  following  minute: 

'  The  committee  appointed  to  bring  in  a  minute  with  reference  to  the 
death  of  Dr.  Witherspoon,  reported  the  following  resolutions,  which 
were  adopted  : 

'Resolved,  ist.  In  view  of  the  death  of  our  beloved  brother,  John 
Witherspoon,  D.  D.,  we  acknowledge  the  hand  of  God,  who  has  ap- 
pointed the  boundaries  of  the  habitations  of  all  men,  and  set  to  them 
a  limit  which  they  may  not  pass. 

'  2d.  Though  sorrowing  that  we  shall  see  his  face  no  more  on  earth, 
yet  we  rejoice  in  the  hope  that  to  him  earth  has  been  the  end  of  all 
sorrow  and  the  beginning  of  all  joy.  His  latter  days  were  marked  by 
many  and  peculiar  sufferings,  and  these  were  rendered  the  more  severe 
by  the  fact  that  in  his  earlier  life  his  career  had  been  one  of  peculiar 
prosperity. 

*  The  son  of  a  noble  race,  a  lineal  descendant  of  John  Knox,  and  the 
grandson  of  John  Witherspoon,  of  Revolutionary  memory,  having 
enjoyed  opportunities  of  instruction  better  than  most  men  of  his  day, 
and  gifted  with  talents  of  the  highest  order,  he  entered  at  an  early  age 
upon  the  duties  of  the  sacred  office. 

*  As  a  popular  speaker,  he  was  excelled  by  none  ;  the  silvery  tones  of 
his  voice,  the  grace  and  elegance  of  his  manner  ;  his  ready  flow  of  lan- 
guage, combined  with  a  remarkable  memory  ;  a  fervid  imagination,  and 
vigorous  powders  of  thought — made  him  a  most  attractive  preacher. 
For  his  success,  however,  he  was,  perhaps,  not  less  indebted  to  his  qual- 
ities as  a  man  than  as  a  preacher — gentle,  courteous,  affable  and  kind, 
he  was  a  pastor  greatly  beloved. 

'  Chosen  Moderator  of  the  General  Assembly  in  times  that  tried 
men's  souls,  he  was  found  equal  to  the  task,  and  made  the  finest  im- 
pression on  the  whole  Church  as  to  his  ability  and  impartiality.  But 
the  Master,  ever  mysterious  in  his  dispensations,  saw  fit  soon  to  lay 
his  servant  by,  and  for  many  years  he  was  called  to  suffer  much  and 
to  do  but  little. 

'  It  is  a  singular  fact  that  in  the  same  community  where  he  first  held 
the  pastoral  office,  and  where,  in  the  vigor  of  his  early  manhood,  he 
preached  with  so  much  success,  there  he  spent  his  last  days  ;  there, 


THE  UNIVERSITY  MAGAZINE. 


143 


too,  as  a  supply,  he  preached  the  gospel  of  peace ;  and  though  with 
less  of  mental  vigor  and  bodily  strength,  possessing  no  longer  the 
sweet  voice  which  had  attracted  the  fathers,  yet  with  the  same  affec- 
tionate manner  and  a  chastened  piety,  he  taught  lessons  of  wisdom  to 
their  children. 

*  Then,  by  the  friends  that  survived,  and  by  the  children  of  others 
that  had  gone  before  him,  he  was  ministered  to  and  wept  over  and 
committed  to  the  dust.' 

"  After  laboring  several  years  in  the  church  of  Columbia,  Mr.  With- 
erspoon's  health  having  given  way,  he  returned  to  his  native  State  to 
die,  as  he  stated  to  the  writer.  His  life  was  mercifully  spared  for  sev- 
eral years  after  his  return,  and,  though  a  life  of  suffering  and  of  sorrow, 
he  bore  all  his  trials  with  meekness,  submission  and  resignation.  Nor 
did  he  relax  his  ministerial  labors  ;  visiting  the  poor,  the  sick  and  the 
afflicted,  and  ministering  to  their  spiritual  wants  with  tenderness  and 
unbroken  zeal.  On  the  23d  of  September,  1853,  and  on  the  thirty- 
seventh  anniversary  of  his  installation  as  pastor  of  the  church  in 
Hillsboro,  after  an  illness  of  great  severity,  he  departed  from  this 
world,  clad  in  the  robes  of  his  Divine  Master. 

"  Beloved  brother  !  loved  while  living  by  all  who  knew  thee,  and 
mourned  when  dead  by  the  community  of  thy  affection,  none  loved 
thee  more  ardently,  or  mourned  thee  more  truly,  than  he  who  writes 
these  cold  lines."  (Signed)  F.  Nash. 


THE  ROSICRUCIANS. 

[Read  before  the  Elisha  Mitchell  Scientific  Society,  Feb.,  1887.] 

The  intellectual  history  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries 
in  Europe  is  the  history  of  a  prolonged  and  triumphant  struggle 
against  the  thraldom  of  mysticism  and  superstition.  The  reign  of 
error  and  of  darkness  had  been  almost  complete.  Nor  is  this  strange, 
when  we  consider  how  corrupt  the  religions  of  the  civilized  world  had 
become.  The  Arabians,  who  were  the  teachers  of  Europe,  were  in 
bondage  to  a  faith  in  which  the  true  Allah  was  inextricably  confused 
with  false  prophets,  genii,  ghouls  and  all  manner  of  spirits.  Under  the 
lead  of  the  Patriarchs  of  the  West,  and  subsequent  rabbinical  schools, 


144 


THE  UNIVERSITY  MAGAZINE. 


the  Jews  had  incorporated  into  their  pure  monotheism  a  vast  mass  of 
tradition  and  superstition,  which  peopled  the  air  and  earth  with  pow- 
ers of  light  and  darkness,  till  their  Temple  became  a  very  Pantheon. 
Nor  were  the  Christian  Trinitarians  much  better.  To  the  Triune  God 
they  worshiped  had  been  added  a  long  list  of  saints  and  martyrs,  and 
idle,  morbid,  crazed  ascetics  had  compiled  whole  tomes  of  legends  and 
visions,  whilst  lying  ecclesiastics  daily  befooled  the  wonder-loving, 
stupid  people  with  relics  and  vaunted  miracles.  It  was  indeed  a  Dark 
Age,  and  the  tyrannical  rule  of  priests  and  scholiasts  kept  it  so.  The 
coming  of  the  Reformation  was  like  the  dawning  of  a  new  day,  though 
it  took  a  long  and  dreary  time  for  the  growing  light  to  drive  away  the 
clouds  and  mists. 

Of  all  nations,  the  Germans  seem  to  have  been  the  most  inclined  to 
this  mysticism.  Whatever  was  supernatural,  or  outside  the  range  of 
reason  and  experience,  presented,  to  their  minds,  much  that  was  attract- 
ive. They  peopled  the  forest  and  the  river,  the  depths  of  earth  and 
of  ocean,  with  creatures  of  their  imagination.  They  delved  among  the 
records  of  the  past  in  search  of  the  wonderful,  and  laboriously  strove 
to  wrest  magical  secrets  from  Nature.  They  were  a  people  peculiarly 
ready  to  seize  upon  anything  dark,  mysterious  and  secret.  Germany 
furnished  a  fertile  soil  for  the  growth  of  Cabbalists,  Paracelsists  and 
similar  societies.  It  was  here  that  the  Rosicrucian  Fraternity  had  its 
rise. 

Though  mysticism  had  an  important  part  to  play  in  the  growth  of 
this  order,  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  two  other  important  factors — the 
state  of  wretchedness  and  want  of  the  masses  in  Europe,  and  the  auri 
sacra  fames,  which  is  a  noticeable  feature  of  modern  society  as  well. 
The  formerled  to  the  inception  of  the  ideal  order,  though  it  was  lost  sight 
of,  apparently,  when  the  ideal  became  the  real.  It  is  difificult  for  us  to 
picture  the  true  condition  of  the  lower  classes  during  the  Middle  Ages. 
What  we  regard  as  the  inalienable  rights  of  man,  were  the  possession 
then  of  those  only  who  had  might  or  wealth  on  their  side.  Rulers 
were  corrupt,  priests  corrupt,  and  truth  and  honesty  were  rare  virtues. 
Rapacious  princes  and  robbers  ground  the  people,  as  between  the  upper 
and  the  nether  millstone.  But,  worse  than  such  oppression,  sanitation 
was  almost  unknown  ;  physicians  were  ignorant  and  disease  rampant. 
Our  great  charitable  institutions,  hospitals,  homes,  asylums,  did  not 
exist.    The  hearts  of  thoughtful  men  were  touched  by  these  evils,  and 


00037490740 

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THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLECTION 


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